What recent assessment has the Minister made of ambulance waiting times in Wales?
There are high numbers of life-threatening calls to the Welsh Ambulance Service – more than 100 recorded per day in January. The total number of 999 calls in January were higher than January 2021.
In January, the average response time to people with an immediately life-threatened condition was less than eight minutes. This was an improved position compared to December 2021. Average response times to amber calls have also improved. However, performance remains to be below where we, health boards and the Welsh Ambulance Service want it to be.
The Emergency Ambulance Services Committee is continuing to work with the Welsh Ambulance Service and health boards to deliver a range of immediate and sustainable actions to support improvement. This is focused on better management of 999 demand in the community, increased capacity, responsiveness to people with time sensitive complaints and ambulance patient handover.
I meet regularly with the chair and chief executive of the Welsh Ambulance Service and the Emergency Ambulance Services Committee to be updated about this work. Progress has been made but it is clear further collaborative action is required to enable sustainable improvement.
One of the areas I am most concerned about is the level of reported ambulance patient handover delays, which remain a significant challenge. Our expectations for ambulance patient handover are clear – we expect all patients to be transferred from the care of ambulance staff to emergency department clinicians in order of clinical priority and always in a timely manner.
I wrote to chairs of health boards at the end of February seeking urgent assurance about their plans to support improvement around ambulance patient handover. They have assured me they are committed to prioritising improvement and we will be tracking progress against key milestones with the expectation of continuous improvement.
In addition, a national risk summit was held on 15 February, to agree urgent action in light of the significant system risks and operational pressures health and care services are experiencing as a consequence of current increase in pandemic pressures.
Following this summit, a number of immediate actions were identified. This included a “system reset” between 2 and 16 March, supported by local risk summits between system leaders from health and social care to agree delivery milestones and areas of focus based on local information and areas of learning from the national risk summit. A national learning event will be held to review national and local actions to support improvement.